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Coco fiber

Right now I have as my computer's wallpaper, Rob's picture of N. mikei(typical sale plant). The plant is potted in pure coco fiber and looks so happy, with it's airy medium and it's osmocote feeding, dripping after being freshly watered.
I believe Rob started using that compost, because it's the only one that was economically feasable, but the plant look so fantastic and the mudium looks so pleasing and clean.
Sorry I am rabling so much.
Does anyone know a good source for this stuff, so i can play around with some as a comparison?

Regards,

Joe
 
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 It's one of my favourite species, it pitchers so prolifically and has leaves like knives.  Here's another photo taken only 2 days ago. It's quite a large file so will take a while to download.

mikei.jpg
 
My N. mikei grows ungodly slow (not as slow as lowii though) but it still has plenty of room in the 3" pot it's in since i planted it in Dec.
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How old is the one in your new pic Rob?
 
It's somewhere around 18 months since it was planted out from the flask. The pot in the phot above is 3" dia. We don't find this species at all slow to put out new leaves and pitchers, which is does at the rate of at least one per month, but it does have a slow growth rate in that the increase in size of each successive leaf isn't that great.   Still, that makes for a more compact plant.  I expect growth rates vary between individuals in the species as seems usual with most Nepenthes.  Where did you get your N. mikei from Josh?
 
Rob,

I will take that individual in your pic there. If you would be good enough to construct a hyperbolic chamber for it and gift wrap it, that would be just peachy.
It was grown with a few Osmacote pellets added once/year?

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Regards,

Joe
 
Griffin,

Your ON a great source of coco-fiber, and I don't mean your bum, petflytrap.com's owner currently has a ton of it in his garage.
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give Phil a call and ask if you can buy some off him, they come in compressed bricks and ask him if you can buy some. It's not on the site yet, but I can tell you I took about eight bricks last time I was there, and have used a few.

My Flytrap tank you can see here



http://www.brokenwatch.net/~rampuppy/

has a 50/50 peat to coco fiber mix in it, covered with a top dressing of sphagnum. I plan on re-doing the big 55 with this stuff.

It is washed horticultural grade, designed for people like us... and it is not that expensive either!

Just to let you know however, it is not long fiber, it's chopped and short, but it is still very 'sproingy' in that you can squeez a clump in your fist and watch it re-expand.

Hope this helps!
 
Joe,

Yes, Osmacote only.  The number of pellets method and frequency of renewal are a secret at present  
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 but all my plants eat nothing else.  It's Osmacote, breakfast lunch and dinner and they never seem to get bored with it.  We have all sorts of other trials running though but so far nothing else has proved better except with very small seedlings.  Even cow dung has been tried (unsuccessfully I might add! ).  For a while I thought the cow thing was working but the potting media broke down too quickly and the pH went wild.  I now have some spare cows for sale.  Tony, would you run them throught the FedEx computer for me to see how much they would cost to ship please  
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WOOT Free steaks for the mere cost of shipping... I can send you a whole bunch of stamps to stick on the backside of that cow!

I have been fiddling around with various things and so far have also seen the best results with a slow release fertilizer. That being said I still recommend folks that are able to care for their plants and feed them the natural way do that instead of playing with risky fertilizers. In a greenhouse like mine however it is just not possible to do that, and produce the vigorous growth that a Nepenthes well fed with insects can produce. The plants are just too dense even though they do catch a fair number of insects on their own. Also the water we use has no nutriative value while water in wild will have some nutrition as it passes through decaying organic matter etc.

Tony
 
I'm a bit late returning to this post...
Rob I got the N. mikei from Germany in December and yes, I guess it does make leaves and pitchers they just don't seem to increase in size very much at all. I keep waiting for that next pitcher that will make me say "oh yeah, that's why I bought you!"
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I guess the 3" pot mines in should last me til around 2005 then!
 
  • #10
Sounds like you might just have a slow growing clone there Josh. That can happen sometimes. At least your pleasure
from growing it won't come in one huge rush!
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Tony, cows here are just so skinny that I could only fit enough stamps on them for surface mail. You should receive them in 2004. Actually, we do have 3 cows and whilst manure may never make it into any textboks on growing CPs it sure works on vegetables!
 
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